


Tell Her

by pleaseenteryourusernamehere



Category: Ocean's (Movies), Ocean's 8
Genre: F/F, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-05-31 23:51:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15130463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleaseenteryourusernamehere/pseuds/pleaseenteryourusernamehere
Summary: Debbie has a raging fever one night and ends up admitting a lot more to Lou than she should while she's hallucinating.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by Aird's suggestion under "Puddle Jumping." Thank you to everyone for the comments and kudos, they mean the world to me and you are all magnificent people for taking some time out of your day to read my stories :)

 

“You’re sick,” Lou says, poking the outline of Debbie’s body, huddled underneath at least five blankets on their bed, with a thermometer. She’d been like this for three hours now and, call it unsympathetic, but she wanted Debbie to move to her  _fucking_ side of the bed and fall asleep so she could get some rest, too.

“I am not sick, I’m _cold_.” Debbie argues, her head popping out of the mass of fleece like a mole in one of those arcade games. Her words don’t hold much weight, however; she sounds unbearably congested. “Maybe if you could-”

“Heat this place up?” Lou asks, sitting on the edge of the bed as she spins the thermometer around in her hand. Debbie’s eyes follow the yellow stick twirling through Lou’s nimble fingers as she says, “I couldn’t heat this place up when I wasn’t a millionaire. It’s at least twenty degrees-”

“ _Twenty_ degrees?” Debbie’s eyes widen as she tightens the blankets around herself and she stares at Lou in disbelief. “You’re fucking insane-”

“Degrees Celsius, that’s like...seventy in Fahrenheit.” Lou says, inching her way up the bed. “Come on, open up.”

Debbie stares at the Spongebob themed thermometer blankly, before looking at Lou and asking, “ _Where_ did you get that?”

“Tammy.” Lou answers, waving it in front of the brunette’s face like one would when feeding a little kid vegetables off a fork. “I cleaned it. _Open_.”

“I am not putting that thing in my mouth.” Debbie says, attempting to hide back under the blankets but Lou’s quick hand stops her, nearly ripping all the blankets off the bed.

“You’ve had worse things in your mouth,” Lou says with a lazily arched eyebrow as she taps Debbie’s lips with the cold plastic. “Now’s not the time to act like a prude.”

“You’re insufferable.” Debbie says, meeting Lou’s eyes with an irritated look before closing her lips around the thermometer.

“Put it under your tongue,” Lou reprimands, able to tell that Debbie has it in the middle of her mouth to get an inaccurate temperature because of how it hung out of her lips. “Debbie-”

“ _‘Debbie_ ’,” she mocks, face contorted to have an expression of utmost exasperation as she glares at Lou but she gives up, lifting her tongue so the thermometer rests firmly beneath it. The seconds before it beeps are tense, Lou knowing that Debbie was most definitely sick; she only started to mock like an annoying child when she had a fever. Her stubbornness also increased tenfold when she was sick, which made these times the absolute worst.

“That’s what I thought-hundred and three.” Lou says, taking the thermometer from Debbie’s mouth, who rolls her eyes when Lou adds for pettiness’s sake “in  _Fahrenheit_ ” at the end.

Debbie buries herself back under the covers, mumbling something that sure sounded a lot like “fuck you” as she went. Lou sighs, knowing she had no medicine in the the apartment, but Tammy was like a walking pharmacy-she’d have some Nyquil at least, right? If she had a thermometer handy, she’d carry around some medicine...right? Who else carried half of Walgreens in their purse except a mother of two? When she makes her way down stairs, quietly because it was nearly one in the morning, she finds out she’s right-Tammy is sitting on the couch with three different medicines on the coffee table.

“How’s she doing?” She asks quietly, rising off the couch to take her thermometer back.

“You know her,” Lou says distractedly, looking at the labels on one of the bottles. “I should tranquilize her for the week.”

Tammy nods with a small, knowing smile, having spent time with both Lou and Debbie when they were sick over the years. Indisputably, Lou was the better one; she would take care of herself, keep up with her medicine, and tell people when she wasn’t feeling well. Debbie, on the other hand, absolutely refused to use the term ‘sick,’ even when her head was buried in a toilet bowl and she was breaking out in cold sweats. She didn’t get sick often-hardly ever, in fact-but when she did, it was absolute hell. Nothing, it seemed, as Tammy looks at the annoyed expression on Lou’s face, had changed.

“What’s her temperature?”

“One hundred and three.” Lou answers, a bottle of something for a fever in her hand as she looks at Tammy. “Wish me luck.”

Tammy laughs before her eyes soften with that tenderness only a mother can possess when her child is sick, saying, “Remember: she couldn’t get sick in jail.”

“I know,” Lou says, knowing full and well that the prison Debbie had been at didn’t have a doctor on duty often. When Debbie had started a fight to get herself put in solitary, she’d been shanked with a scrap piece of metal and no one looked at her stab wound for three days except to give her a bandage. “Get some sleep for me.”

When she’s back upstairs, Debbie hasn’t moved; the lump of blankets is still in the middle of their bed. The lump moves when Lou enters, barely shifting so that she could peek out from a hole underneath and glare at the medicine in her hand.

“Take a sip,” Lou orders, pulling back the blankets and holding the bottle out to Debbie whose face was flushed, eyes bloodshot and hair strewn about in every direction. She looked like shit.

“No.”

“For fuck’s sake, take a sip.”

“ _No_.”

“I’ll force it down your throat.”

“No.”

“Debra-”

“ _Oooooh_ ,” She mocks, eyes flashing with sarcastic anger as they meet Lou’s. “We’re using full names now? I’m not taking the damn medicine _Louise_.”

“So help me God, I _will_ kill you,” Lou breathes, grabbing Debbie’s jaw with a tight hand as she turns her mouth towards the bottle. She always had to force Debbie-a grown ass woman who was smart enough to be accepted into Stanford once upon a time-to drink some fucking medicine. She tips the cherry colored medicine back, some spilling onto Debbie’s face, but more than enough making it into her mouth. “Swallow- _swallow_.”

Debbie’s brown eyes look downright _furious_ as she swallows the medicine with a disgusted shudder, lips pursing to show her repulsion, before she sticks her tongue out at Lou, disappearing under the blankets before she can make a childish remark. Lou’s just glad she wasn’t spit on, because _that_ had happened before, too.

“Are you gonna move over so I can have some space?” Lou asks as she stands, placing the medicine on the dresser.

Her only answer is Debbie stretching so she covered every square inch of their bed.

<><><><><><><><>

A couple hours later, as Lou dozes in and out of sleep in a chair next to their bed, Debbie lets out a scream. Without a second’s hesitation, Lou leaps out of her seat and pulls the blankets off Debbie, noticing the sweaty sheen covering her skin even in the dark. She felt hotter than she had when she fell asleep and those layers of blankets probably hadn’t helped.

“Hey, wake up,” she says, softly but firmly as she shakes Debbie’s shoulder, burning and covered in a thin, damp shirt. “Deb-”

She thrashes her arm out, barely missing Lou’s face and she screams again, a strangled sound that gets caught somewhere in the back of her throat. She turns violently in her sleep, chest heaving with deep breaths as she kicks the blankets at her feet, fighting with the fleece throws.

“Deb-” Once again, Debbie lashes out at Lou, who dodges the punch nearly a second too late. Without really thinking, Lou scoops her up, wincing as Debbie slams her fist into her jaw, and carries her to the bathroom. She lays her down on the tile floor, knowing it would be cold against Debbie’s feverish skin, and begins to run a lukewarm bath as Debbie cries out again in her sleep.

She doesn’t have to shake her awake; after less than a minute of being in the bathroom, Debbie throws up, vomit trailing down the front of her shirt and instantly waking her from her nightmare. Lou directs her confused partner towards the toilet, holding her sweaty hair back as she empties her stomach into the porcelain bowl. Her hand runs up and down Debbie’s clammy back as the horrible retching sounds fill the dead silence of the early morning, but she doesn’t say a word because Debbie was not one who needed-or appreciated-sweet nothings in her ear as she was vomiting.

Once Debbie finishes, she rests her red, exhausted face on the side of the bowl, taking Lou in with unfocused, half-lidded eyes as the blonde turns the bath water off and faces her.

“Can you stand up?” Lou asks, kneeling next to her, reaching for the hem of Debbie’s shirt.

“Don’t _fucking_ touch me,” she viciously snarls, hitting Lou’s hand away with a surprising amount of force for a woman who had upchucked less than a minute ago and glares at Lou as if she’s seeing someone else. Lou tries to touch her again, but Debbie practically lunges at her, nails aiming at her eyes.

“Debbie- _Jesus_ -it’s me,” Lou says confused and somewhat desperate, never having seen her composed partner like this-not even before...before prison. ‘ _Remember: she couldn’t get sick in jail._ ’ Tammy’s words sound through Lou’s mind and she looks at Debbie’s cowering frame in the corner of the bathroom, vomit covering her t-shirt, narrow shoulders shaking from the heavy breaths she was taking, those eyes that made Lou’s heart leap the first day they’d met looking unbelievably furious. Something- _someone_ -must’ve happened in jail that made her this afraid of being sick.

“Hey, Debbie, listen to me,” Lou begins, unable to get her attention so she raises her voice. “Debbie-look at me.” After a couple seconds, her dazed brown eyes look at her, but look right through her. “Get in the bathtub, you’ll feel better.” Debbie glances at the bathtub and then back at Lou as if she didn’t understand a word of what Lou was saying. “Debbie, you know me, come on.” She reaches out to touch her again, but Debbie recoils, curling in on herself as Lou’s hand retreats and she leans back on her knees, unsure of how to approach this situation. She decides to wait it out; see what would happen if she didn’t bother her and let herself choose what she was going to do. Once Debbie’s eyes close and her head leans back onto the wall, shoulders slumped in a considerably more defenseless stance, Lou reaches for her again.

“No,” she groans pathetically, one arm making a weak attempt to shove Lou’s hand off of her as her vomit-soaked shirt is removed. “ _No_ -don’t…” She is barely able to struggle against Lou’s hold that was lifting her up, lowering her into the bathtub in just her underwear and bra. She jolts at the feeling of suddenly being surrounded by water and splashes the surface, soaking the mat under the tub, yelling out a “NO!”

“Debbie,” Lou repeats sternly, tilting the brunette’s head so it was facing her. “Look at me.”

“No-Trish- _no_ -stop-” Debbie mumbles out a mess of words, only a few coherent and Lou distantly wonders who the _fuck_ Trish was because if one of Debbie’s cellmates happened to have that name, not a single higher power could help them at this point.

“It’s Lou.” She says softly, grabbing hold of Debbie’s clammy hand, squeezing it as she meets Debbie’s eyes. She raises Debbie’s hand to her lips, kissing it gently as she maintains eye contact, lacing her fingers through Debbie’s. “You know me.”

Debbie stares at her for nearly a minute and Lou begins to feel increasingly uneasy because not a single flicker of familiarity or trust crosses the brunette’s face. She was looking at Lou like she was a stranger that was aiming a gun at her. Debbie’s scared, guarded eyes bore into her and she gets the sudden, rare urge to cry; they had been friends since God was a boy, there was nothing unfamiliar between each other, nothing that would warrant that distrusting look Debbie was giving her.

“You _know_ me, Deb,” Lou practically pleads, still holding her hand as she continues, “We stole the Toussaint a month ago, you-”

“Lou,” Debbie says it as if she’s trying it out for the first time, lips pursing at the end of the name.

“Yes-Lou,” she repeats, releasing Debbie’s hand and sitting closer to the tub.

“I know a Lou...you look like her.” She is still staring at her with unfamiliar eyes, but they’re no longer angry or cautious.

Lou laughs in relief, sensing that Debbie had relaxed enough for Lou to be allowed to touch her. She leans over the bathtub, grabbing the shampoo, pouring a sizable amount in her hands before working her fingers through Debbie’s hair. Debbie, having always been a sucker for people playing with her hair, hums in approval and leans back into the tub with her eyes closed. It’s silent for a couple minutes as Lou massages Debbie’s scalp before-

“I’m going to ask her to marry me,” she says it quietly, so quietly Lou almost doesn’t hear her, before glancing up at Lou, completely unaware that she _was_ Lou. “She doesn’t know.”

Lou wants to laugh at her because her heart was beating too fast and she can’t process those emotions right now, not when Debbie was so delusional she was ruining her own proposal plans.

“She’s a lucky girl,” Lou says, feigning distanced interest.

“No...” Debbie trails off, distracted by her own fingers gliding through the water for a couple seconds. “I’m the lucky one-she’s...she’s unlucky.”

Lou’s heart clenches and she stops running water through Debbie’s hair as she asks, “Why do you say that?”

“She’s with me-that’s unlucky.” Debbie says in a small voice, eyes looking at Lou with unprecedented vulnerability. “She’s a better person than I am-I could ever be. I’m...horrible.”

“You are not horrible.” Lou reassures, before looking at the large amount of soap left in Debbie’s hair, even with water having run through it. “Close your eyes and-don’t breathe.” She dips her head under the water, fingers shaking her hair, watching as bubbles rise from the wet brunette tresses. _She didn’t actually think she was horrible, did she?_ When Debbie resurfaces, she doesn’t seem any more with it than she had been for the last hour so Lou continues, asking, “Why do you think that?”

Debbie doesn’t answer for a minute, instead plays with her hair as if it’s very interesting, until she finally confesses, “I left her for-for...a guy and I’ve never apologized for it.”

That strikes a chord with Lou because she knew-she _knew_ how Debbie felt without her ever saying anything. She never had to say anything. They understood each other, neither doubted Debbie’s hate for Claude or her regrets when it came to that son of a bitch, so they never addressed it. Lou never expected an apology-never needed one. Trying her hardest to remain indifferent as she runs a soapy washcloth over Debbie’s arm, she says, “I’m sure she knows.”

“I don’t always know if she does...I don’t say I love her every day.” Her eyes are staring at the tile on the bathroom wall as she says it, but then they shoot to Lou’s, wide and reassuring, “I do love her-more than she knows-I just...don’t say that.”

Lou’s face is getting hotter and hotter as the blush rises up the back of her neck, burning her cheeks. There was a reason she and Debbie never spoke about their feelings; they were too embarrassed to admit to needing one another and loving someone so unconditionally. Their lives had made them want to squash those feelings before they ever surfaced.

“I’m sure she knows,” she repeats, running the washcloth down Debbie’s leg, feeling like she was taking advantage of her in this confused state. She could probably get an answer to any question she’d ever want an answer to, but instead she says, “Hey, I’m getting you some clothes, okay? Don’t...fall asleep or something.”

She gets a hum for a response and she leaves, barely stepping a foot out of the bathroom to grab one of her shirts that’s laying in a heap on the floor, because she wouldn’t trust Debbie alone in a padded room at the moment. And sure enough, in the five seconds she was gone, Debbie had slipped further down into the water, her nose barely sticking out over the surface.

“Debbie.” Lou says, getting her attention right away, brown eyes flying to meet hers as she sits further up in the tub. Lou flushes the toilet, closing the lid before laying her shirt on the sink. “Here, dry yourself off.” She opens a towel and Debbie tries to stand on unsteady legs, falling into Lou’s arms the second she did so. Lou guides her out of the bathtub, leg by leg, before sitting her down on the closed toilet lid.

“I’m scared.” Debbie says suddenly as Lou is drying her hair with a towel.

“Of what?” Lou asks, getting up to get the brush off the sink. She stands next to Debbie, gently pulling the knots out of her hair for a couple minutes and starting on a braid before she gets a response.

“I’m not nice.” She answers, as if it was a response that Lou could fully understand. “She’s nice, I’m mean...I don’t know if she’ll want to marry me.”

Lou’s fingers stop braiding and she looks at the back of Debbie’s head, wondering what the hell was going on in there. She would’ve married Debbie before it was ever legal-she would’ve married her back when they were breaking into cars to sleep in at night and paying for every meal with stolen money. “Why...” She forces out a cough, unable to control the emotion in her voice, focusing on tying a hair tie around the end of Debbie’s braid. “Why do you say that?”

“We don’t like marriages.” Lou’s eyes close and she sighs, running her fingers down Debbie’s hair as she thinks that comment through. Both she and Debbie had come from broken homes; Debbie’s father had been abusive to her mother until she disappeared nearly thirty years earlier and Lou’s mother had been a drug addict that shot her father one night when she was too hyped up on crack to even realize what she was doing. Even the people around them-Tammy’s marriage had no passion and Danny’s marriage had no trust and Daphne’s marriages had no meaning. “She might leave me.”

Lou’s eyebrows furrow in confusion and she circles around, removing Debbie’s towel so she could get dressed. “I don’t think she’ll leave you,” she says soothingly, adding, “She loves you, right?”

Debbie gives her a small nod as Lou takes off her soaked bra, flinging it across the bathroom floor. She works Debbie’s compliant arms through the holes of her shirt, beginning to button the buttons as she continues, “If you two love each other then what’s the problem?”

“I don’t tell her ‘I love you’ enough. Sometimes I think she forgets.” Lou’s heart skips a beat at the raw emotion in Debbie’s voice and she meets her eyes once she’s done with the shirt’s buttons, surprised at the sadness and fear in them.

“You don’t forget that you love someone,” she says with confidence, standing Debbie up as she continues, “Take your underwear off-they’re wet.”

Debbie complies and something about seeing her in nothing but her own shirt, hair still wet from the bathtub, eyes glassy because of her fever and cheeks rosy from her raging temperature, mouth spewing these Hallmark-like love confessions at four in the morning, solidifies the fact that she already knew; she was hopelessly in love with Debbie. Sometimes she doubted herself-her decisions-because who didn’t? Everyone was nervous the night before their wedding, everyone had their doubts when declaring their love, everyone was scared when it came to their significant other. There were too many awful stories when it came to love, too many places a relationship could go wrong, too many instances of people changing.

“Come on, get some sleep,” Lou says with a tenderness in her voice that wasn’t there a couple minutes ago, briefly wondering if Debbie would even remember this in a few hours, tugging her hand as she leads her into their bedroom. Debbie climbs in after her, bunching the blankets up around her arms so she could hold onto them, where she would usually be cuddled up to Lou.

“She’s not going to like that I slept with you,” Debbie warns, looking at Lou from where her head rested on the pillow with tired eyes. “She’ll try to fight you.”

“Tell her to fuck off,” Lou laughs, a lightness in her heart she’d never experienced settling down deep in her chest the longer she thought about the past hour. Debbie is asleep within minutes, completely still save for the deep breaths causing her ribcage to rise and fall in a steady rhythm. Lou moves closer to her so that their faces are an inch apart and she can see Debbie’s eyelashes flutter against her cheek, just barely, with each exhalation. She looked younger; more like that twenty-something Debbie that arrived in her life, all sexy charm, sparkling eyes, and unwavering confidence, over two decades ago. She hadn’t seen that Debbie since jail. Gently, she presses a soft kiss to Debbie’s warm temple, adding, “Tell her to do a better job convincing you she loves you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the sweet comments! I got inspired by all you lovelies and decided to write a second chapter. Hopefully you enjoy it :)

Debbie wakes up with a groan, limbs stretching out like a cat until she feels that Lou’s legs are tangled with hers and she stops, not wanting to wake her. The blinding morning light is shining in through half-closed curtains and her head is pounding and fuzzy-from sleep, her fever, or that overdose of repulsive medicine Lou had forced down her throat, Debbie wasn’t sure-and there is a disgusting taste in her mouth. Quietly, she removes herself from Lou’s grasp and looks down, confused to see that she is in Lou’s shirt and nothing else.

When she enters the bathroom, she’s even more confused as to why the shirt she was wearing last night is balled up in the corner and her bra and underwear are also on the floor. She picks up the shirt a second before the smell of vomit registers and she pieces that much together; she’d thrown up and Lou had changed her into her own clothes. She considers putting the shirt in the wash but decides against it, tossing it into a garbage bag in their bathroom. She never liked that shirt all that much, anyway.

Making her way to the sink, she notices for the first time that her hair is in a damp, slightly disheveled braid as she stares at her reflection in the mirror. Wetting her toothbrush and applying toothpaste to it, she lightly prods her underwear with her toe, feeling that it was wet. So, she threw up, Lou cleaned her in the shower and changed her into a new shirt. That made sense.

She spits the minty foam from her toothpaste into the sink, before moving to pick up her bra and underwear, slinging them over the curtain rod so they could dry. They-

She remembers Trish here.

But that’s not possible-Trish was still in jail, rotting in her cell...hopefully.

But that’s not possible-she remembers Trish next to the toilet, in the bathroom she shared with Lou, last night. She can see her spiteful, nasty face, crystal clear, but can’t remember anything else. Had she been dreaming? Why did she remember Trish? Where was Lou last night? What the fuck had happened?

She rinses her toothbrush off, swishes mouthwash, and spits, looking at her reflection again. Her eyes have bags under them and her eyebrows are more disorderly than a kindergarten classroom. She splashes some water on her face, hoping it can help her remember what went on earlier, but then she’s just wet and no less confused than she had been a minute ago.

Debbie sighs, going back into their room to find some underwear. Lou is still sound asleep when she walks past their bed, quietly opening a drawer of the dresser and choosing a modest, blue and grey striped pair of underwear. She takes the vomit shirt bag from the bathroom, stopping to pull the blankets up securely around Lou, pressing a chaste kiss to her forehead before she leaves their room.

The kitchen is empty when she enters, flicking on the lights and scooping out coffee grains into a filter immediately. She looks around the messy kitchen, not sure what she wanted to eat, because she didn’t want to throw it up-not that she was _sick_ , she was just unusually susceptible to vomiting at the moment. Deciding on Lou’s favorite, she rummages through the freezer for a minute before finding the bacon and leaving it to thaw for a minute as she fills up her coffee mug, leaning back on the counter.

 _“I’m going to ask her to marry me_. _”_

She can hear herself saying it and nearly chokes on her scalding coffee.

Had she _actually_ said that?

The longer she thinks about it, she groans, staring at her reflection in the microwave, wondering what other stupid things she’d said last night. She hadn’t even planned anything for the proposal; thought maybe she’d do it on New Years, but that was too cliché, thought maybe Lou’s birthday, but that was too risky, thought maybe a date night, but that was too obvious. Now it wouldn’t be a surprise no matter when she did it.

She drums her fingers irritably on the marble counter, cursing herself mentally, before she feels the dull ache in her hand and she looks down. Her left hand had little, blue bruises adorning the tops of her knuckles. What the fuck did she-

_“I don’t tell her ‘I love you’ enough.”_

Oh, Mother Mary in Heaven, she had _not_ fucking said that, had she?

She wants to scream at her own stupidity and distracts herself with opening the bacon package and grabbing the largest frying pan they owned, turning on the stove. Piece by piece, she puts fifteen pieces of bacon in, stomach rolling with embarrassment-or maybe she was going to throw up again-as she did so. What happened this morning that she was so fucking delusional she had turned into a blubbering romcom star? She unties her braid, feeling through her long hair, playing with the ends-a nervous tick she had. Some people bit their nails when they were anxious, Lou chewed the inside of her mouth, Tammy did not stop talking, and Debbie played with her hair. The sizzling of bacon distracts her for a couple minutes, but then she begins to remember more of their conversation, which makes her feel increasingly worse.

Debbie was not insecure but-yeah, she kind of was when it came to Lou because that sexy mess of leather, ingenuity, piercing blue eyes and blonde locks standing at 5’9” with an amazing figure was her entire world. She felt like she was grasping at straws when it came to keeping her around now that the heist was over and the last thing she wanted was to chase her away with the possibility of a proposal looming over their heads. She had been nothing short of a bitch when it came to Claude Becker and she never even apologized for it. She hardly ever told her that she loved her-and, sure, she could and would show it, but sometimes people needed to hear it. She shouldn’t have to rely on Lou being able to understand her all the time-she should be able to just fucking say it. Lou could say she loved her and she did it often, no matter who they were around or where they were. Debbie only ever said it when they were alone, as if she was afraid of letting other people know how much she cared for Lou.

Why would Lou, who flaunted their relationship shamelessly, want to spend the rest of her life with someone who rarely even held her hand in public? Why would Lou, who had already waited over five years for Debbie to return, wait any longer for her to make up her damn mind when it came to their committed relationship? Why would Lou-

“I can hear you thinking,” the sultry voice is right behind her ear and Debbie jumps in surprise at the sound, colliding with Lou’s warm chest, her heart racing as the blonde’s arms wrap around her waist. Lou rests her head on Debbie’s shoulder, kissing her pulse point with warm lips, before saying, “Morning.”

“Good morning,” Debbie replies, proud of herself for keeping her voice even. “What’re you doing up so early? I wanted to be able to actually eat some of this.”

“You’re lucky you look so good in my shirt, brat,” Lou laughs, her breath tickling Debbie’s ear as she continues to hold her from behind. Debbie can feel Lou’s smile against her neck, feel the curved lips against her skin and that eases her uneasy stomach a little.

She turns around in Lou’s arms, figuring the bacon could remain unattended for a minute, and leans in for a kiss so-

“What the fuck happened to your jaw?” She breathes, taking in the nasty blue bruise on the left side of Lou’s face, fingers trailing over the smooth, slightly swollen skin. It looked painful as hell, but Lou hardly seems fazed by it as her thumb makes little circles on Debbie’s hip.

“Bar fight,” Lou smiles slightly, eyes flickering down to Debbie’s half-exposed chest from the lack of buttoned buttons. Debbie gives her a pointed look and Lou continues, all gentle sarcasm as she says, “Some crazy brunette was flailing around at four o’clock this morning.”

“Lou-oh my God-” Debbie stops, thinking about her bruised knuckles and the image of Trish in the bathroom and her instinct to protect herself at all costs after jail. “I’m so sorry-I-God, what was _wrong_ with-”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Lou assures, hand rubbing up and down Debbie’s side soothingly. Her smile is genuine and comforting, but Debbie can’t tear her eyes off that disgusting bruise, wondering how much force it took to leave a mark that prominent. Just another reason she doesn’t deserve her. Lou didn’t bruise easily and she looks like Babe Ruth had whacked her with an iron bat. “Your bacon’s going to burn if you keep staring at me.”

Debbie nods at her slowly, turning around to take the bacon off the stove as Lou gets herself a cup of coffee. She grabs a towel, throwing it down on the table and placing the pan on top of it before she takes her own coffee mug off the counter and sits down at the end of the table, next to Lou.

“Have you taken your temperature?” Lou asks, mostly for a conversation starter because they both knew damn well that Debbie hadn’t.

“No, I couldn’t find the Toys R Us you stole it from,” Debbie responds immediately, earning a fake scowl that causes her mouth to go dry, because Lou sitting there in a black wifebeater- _how ironic_ , she thinks, eyeing that bruise again-and a pair of grey boyshorts, lounging back in her chair as if she was made for it is a sight for sore eyes. One of her long legs is bent, resting on the seat, and the other is dangling, nearly touching Debbie’s as she looks at her with a curious stare. Her blonde hair is messy from sleep, bangs swept over to stay out of her brilliantly blue eyes, and Debbie can’t resist leaning forward to give her a kiss.

Lou welcomes it, opening her mouth before Debbie’s tongue ever asks for permission, and raises her hand to hold the back of Debbie’s head, tugging on the hair there to tilt her face slightly as their mouths moved slowly against each other’s in a rhythm that’s been perfected over the years in various getaway cars, cheap motels, and back alleys. Debbie’s hand moves to gently cup her bruised jaw, sighing through her nose at the feeling. It wasn’t accurate to say every kiss felt like the first time-because their first kiss was sloppy as hell and didn’t taste like much more than burning liquor-but every kiss certainly felt better than the last. Lou tasted like a mix of toothpaste-or was that her?-and something sweet and something smoky and something purely unique to Lou. Something intoxicating that, even after years of this, Debbie couldn’t get enough of, something that drew her back to Lou like a moth to a flame, something that made her pull up Lou’s contact first after she was released from jail, something that kept her returning to Lou’s bed night after night after night for nearly twenty years.

When she pulls back, Lou’s eyes flutter open, the ice blue orbs warm as Debbie kisses her jaw softly, lips lingering along the bruise as her heart pounds in her chest. Debbie stares at her angelic face for a second before quietly saying, “I love you.”

An unreadable look flashes across Lou’s face before she returns, “I love you, too...is the-”

“Hold that thought,” Debbie cuts her off with an anxious voice, stomach churning with fear as she gets up from her seat, knowing what she’s going to do before she even really thinks about it. She finds the empty container of Clorox wipes-because none of their slob children would ever think to clean the house so there was no better place to hide an engagement ring-in the back of a cabinet and takes the top off, a small black box falling into her hand as she turns it upside down. Now is as good a time as any; Lou won’t be expecting it and it was just the two of them and their feelings. Without further hesitation, she places the open box on the kitchen table in front of Lou, meeting her gaze with apprehensive eyes as she declares with confidence she didn’t feel, “Marry me.”

Lou’s eyes go wide with surprise as she looks at the large, sparkling engagement ring. It was made of one large sapphire and various smaller diamonds from the Dutch Sapphire Tiara they had stolen-not the Toussaint, because that would be too obvious and Lou’s favorite color was blue. Also, Lou and Debbie had a lively, happy history with the Netherlands; it seemed to be the country they always ran to and hid in for weeks at a time while on the run from European authorities during their overseas heists. The seconds between setting the box down and Lou’s response feel like eternity for Debbie; her heart is nearly pounding out of her chest and her blood is rushing through her veins a million miles a minute.

Lou opens her mouth, pauses to look between Debbie and the engagement ring, before a smile tugs at her lips and she says, calmly, as if Debbie had asked her to pass the salt, “Okay.”

The word has barely left her mouth before Debbie kisses her again, less gentle and more passionate than before. Her hand gets lost somewhere in blonde hair as Lou’s hands tug at Debbie’s hips, settling her on her lap so she was straddling her legs. Their bare thighs touch as Lou’s wandering hands feel along the smooth skin of Debbie’s abdomen, leaving a trail of goosebumps. It’s a release for Debbie; the fear twisting her stomach uncoils the longer their kiss lasts and is completely gone when Lou takes Debbie’s bottom lip between her teeth, biting and tugging the soft skin as the brunette lets out a moan against her mouth. Lou’s lips drag down Debbie’s neck, giving her a dark purple hickey, and Debbie arches against Lou, gasping as Lou’s tongue works its wonders along her collarbone.

Lou pulls back first, staring at Debbie for a long moment with an expression that makes the brunette’s heart flutter before saying with her trademark smugness, “Well, give me the ring, darling.”

Not moving from her spot on Lou’s lap, Debbie grabs the black box and takes out the priceless ring and slides it onto Lou’s finger without a hitch. The ring fits perfectly, sparkling in the morning sun and a sliver of light illuminates Lou’s face, making her eyes gleam more beautifully than sapphire and her face shine brighter than a star. The bruise glows and, in an odd way, it matches her eyes and accentuates her graceful jawline. Debbie stares at her in total awe, silently thanking whatever force running the universe for putting this magnificent woman in her life, before her eyes flit down to those soft pink lips that seem to be stuck in a permanent smile.

Like two teenagers having their first kiss, they slowly, unsurely, lean in, lips pressing against each others gently, as if one wrong move could ruin the moment. Lou’s hand cups Debbie’s face and she can feel the cool metal of the ring graze her skin and she shivers, hands squeezing Lou’s hips. Sure, the proposal had been somewhat unromantic and rather blunt, but at the same time, it fit their relationship because that was them; unromantic and blunt. They didn’t need to have someone get on their knee or have a long, heartfelt speech or the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop-they were no ordinary couple. They’d had twenty years of fighting and crying and loving and fucking to say everything that needed to be said. They-

“You two are disgusting,” Amita’s tired and disturbed voice sounds from the entrance to the kitchen, completely shattering the silence and blissful moment between Debbie and Lou. “Making out over the body of a slaughtered pig that had a life and-”

“Oh for the love of _Christ_ , Amita,” Debbie groans, pulling back from the kiss immediately upon hearing her. She had been on the receiving end of the vegan rant from that woman countless times and, had she not been desperately needed in both the Toussaint Heist and the Engagement Plan, Debbie would’ve forced her to move back in with her mother already. Debbie climbs out of Lou’s lap, picking up a piece of bacon that had been long forgotten in the midst of a marriage proposal and dramatically sticks it in her mouth, eyes rolling back in her head as she hums, “ _So_ good.”

Lou laughs, a quiet sound that rumbles deep in her chest, turning to Amita as she says, “I wouldn’t start that fight today.”

“Woah, what happened to you?” Amita says, eyes wide, momentarily forgetting about the bacon as she looks at the bruise on Lou’s jaw.

“Bar fight,” Lou says without a seconds delay, looking at Debbie with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes as she takes a bite of her bacon. “Crazy woman at the club last night.”

Amita, who wouldn’t be able to tell that a person was lying even if they had ‘I am a liar’ tattooed across their forehead, nods in response, pouring herself some coffee as Debbie says, “Tell her that if she hurts you again, I’ll kick her ass.” She says it lightly, but there’s a promise in those words and Lou gives her an unrecognizable look, eyes curious and distant for a brief moment, before a breathtaking smile crosses her fair features.

“You mean she’s not already dead?” Amita says, sounding incredulous as she looked at Debbie, who responds with, “I just got out of the slammer, I don’t need to put myself back in.”

“Oh, baby, I’m sure you could plan a wedding from Rikers,” Lou says with mock encouragement lacing the words, patting Debbie’s thigh with her left hand so Amita could see her wearing the engagement ring, because she hadn’t noticed that or the black box yet.

The reaction is immediate; Amita squeals and lets out a high pitched “Awwww!” as she claps her hands together in quick applause. “Oh my God! Finally!” Before Lou or Debbie knows what happened, Amita is squeezing them in a tight hug, squishing their faces together comically before she pulls back, taking Lou’s hand. “Oh, it fits perfectly! And it looks gorgeous on you! When did this happen?!”

“Over a slaughtered pig,” Debbie deadpans, earning a snort from Lou and appalled sound from Amita, who releases Lou and steps back as if standing around the pan of bacon would make her a murderer.

Amita begins rattling off statistics about pig cruelty or something as Lou takes a piece of bacon, Debbie’s eyes following her every move. The ring glints as she raises the bacon to her mouth and Debbie swears she purses her lips around it on purpose-just to mess with her, because no one looked that good when they ate. Her slicing jaw moves with every bite and her face is relaxed, content, as she finishes the piece, licking the grease off her fingers because she hates Debbie, apparently, and wants her to completely fall apart at the kitchen table.

“You’re staring,” Lou informs her, not looking at Debbie, the sides of her eyes creasing with a smile as she takes another piece of bacon.

“I love you,” Debbie says quietly, remembering saying _“I don’t tell her ‘I love you’ enough”_ during her mental relapse this morning. “Lou-look at me-” Lou’s eyes meet hers, bright with happiness that Debbie has never seen her possess before, giving her the confidence to say it again, “I love you.”

Lou’s smile is wide, white teeth dazzling in the lights, and she leans in, hand resting on the side of Debbie’s face as she says, “I love you, too. Don’t ever doubt that.” Her gaze is piercing and intense and Debbie distantly wonders what else she said this morning, if she had mentioned that sometimes she thought Lou didn’t-

“Stop _thinking_ ,” Lou says, sounding exasperated as she kisses Debbie slowly, tasting like bacon and coffee, but the kiss is cut short by Amita’s fake gagging in the background, causing Lou to roll her eyes as she pulls away.

“You have no shame, that _poor_ murdered animal-”

“I’m about to throw my murder at you,” Debbie says, grabbing a piece of bacon and waving it at Amita threateningly. Lou laughs and rests her hand on Debbie’s arm in a weak attempt to stop her, amused by the look of horror on Amita’s face.

“Don’t you-” the bacon is flung across the kitchen “- _dare_!” Amita screeches, dodging the flying murder and running out of the room as it falls on the floor.

“You wasted a perfectly good piece of bacon,” Lou says, feigning disappointment as she looks at the food on the tile before meeting Debbie’s eyes.

“Well, she ruined a perfectly good kiss.” Debbie says indignantly, holding up another piece to Lou’s mouth, who bats it away and kisses Debbie again, tongue reaching her mouth before her lips do. Without warning, the weight of the morning’s events crashes into Debbie mid-kiss and she wants to laugh and cry and scream and squeal because five years ago, for various personal and legal reasons, she would’ve never been able to ask Lou to marry her. She was-still is-childish and stupid and ridiculously insecure and never realized how much she needed Lou until she was wearing that gaudy orange suit and behind bars. But that didn’t matter now, not when they can get married and they will and they will spend the rest of their lives together and-

“You still feel warm,” Lou pulls back suddenly, eyeing her suspiciously as the back of her hand feels her forehead. “You know, if this entire engagement thing is a ploy to distract me so you don’t have to take your medicine, I’m on your ass, Ocean, you can’t fool me.”

Debbie laughs, smiling at Lou like a goddamn fool as she leans in to kiss her again, less than a millimeter away when she murmurs, “ _Dammit_.”


End file.
